Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

These challenges will have to be mastered, as
vertical interoperability will be critical for true
service transformation.
Our fifth finding is that personalization is emerging.
The idea of tailoring what government provides to
the individual user comes about as an evolution of
the intentions-based approach where a basic form
of segmentation has been used. Now segmentation
is being augmented with an added element of time,
so that services and information offered change as
certain life events occur. Some countries are finding
that personalization is not without its challenges.
Aside from privacy concerns, there may be a risk
that citizens are disinclined to undertake much
effort to create a personalized site. Legislation also
limits how much personal information can be gathered.
Therefore, some governments are working on
maximizing the amount of services that can be
matched to citizens’ interests and needs based on
a minimum amount of confidential information.
In section two of this report, The Citizens’ View,
we introduce a new dimension of the overall
eGovernment picture. In the past, our information
for these eGovernment Leadership reports has
always come from Accenture researchers behaving
as citizens and businesses looking for particular
services, our interviews with government executives
and our own extensive experience working with
agencies at all levels of government. One perspective
we had never included, however, was that of the
citizen—the actual end users in different countries.
Last year, we undertook our first survey of citizens’
attitudes and practices related to eGovernment and
released it as a supplemental study. This year, we
have augmented the scope of that research, and it
now forms an integral part of this report. We found
that even in countries with a high Internet penetration,
many citizens rarely—if ever—visited a government
website. When they did, it was overwhelmingly for
informational rather than higher-value transactional
services. These findings have important implications;
countries not only need a balanced approach to
determining where to make their eGovernment
investments, they also need more robust marketing
programs to promote existing services aggressively
and drive up usage of high-value services.
governments historically have had in accurately
assessing the value in their eGovernment initiatives.
Governments have made investments without having
a standard view of what outcomes constitute
value. They also have picked targets that failed to
give an accurate picture of how well their programs
were delivering against their eGovernment visions.
Section three of the report, Driving Value Through
eGovernment, provides a framework based on the
Accenture Public Sector Value Model for plotting the
two levers of eGovernment value—outcomes and
cost-effectiveness—as well as for measuring success
in eGovernment and tracking progress over time.
In section four, Innovative Practices in eGovernment,
we once again describe some of the best examples
of eGovernment initiatives in five different industries:
revenue and customs; postal; human services;
immigration, justice and security; and education.
These examples illustrate how governments are
adding value by using eGovernment as a way to
enhance service delivery, rather than merely to
provide an additional channel. This year, we have
included a number of examples of governments
that have built integrated services across multiple
agencies with great success.
In section five, Transforming Service, Transforming
Governments, we provide a vision of the ultimate
goal of eGovernment—service transformation. We
also make recommendations for countries at different
stages of maturity to help them take their next
steps forward. Service transformation involves far
more than simply replicating the offline world
online. Service transformation means governments
will anticipate and push appropriate services out to
citizens and businesses rather than merely respond
to requests or claims. Governments that transform
their services will not think in terms of horizontal
and vertical integration alone, but will envision
and create entirely new services enabled by seamless
integration.
Finally, we conclude the report with individual
overviews of the state of eGovernment in each of
the 22 governments we surveyed, drawing together
our results and conclusions within the context of
each country.
The clear gaps in what government online programs
provide for citizens and the way citizens view and
actually use these programs point to a problem
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